Q FM Africa's Modern Radio
Former Finance Minister Katele Kalumba says the change of the orthodox way of taxation with respect to mineral royalties by taxing at the point of production rather than at the point of declaring dividends of profits is what is most striking in the 2015 national budget.
Dr. Kalumba says much as this change is unorthodox in terms of how the country has been taxing the mines, the measure has on other hand answered to the many concerns of the Zambian people as regards to the integrity of declaration of profits by mining companies.
In an interview with Qfm News Dr. Kalumba who was Cabinet Minister under the MMD government, has stated that this change of taxation of the mines will however require a good knowledge of using the already exiting technological competence of Zambian engineers to access not only the quantity of the mineral content but also the mineral substrates before effecting the tax.
Dr. Kalumba says he thus believes that Finance Minister Alexander Chikwanda when he presented the 2015 national may have considered the fact that market price of base metals are already known.
He says this is because once concentrate of mineral such as Copper and its concentrate substrates are quantified it is easy to know a quick picture of what the profit margins will be for the mining company provided its overall production costs are also known.
The former Finance Minister notes that much as the mining companies in the country have their complaints over the said unorthodox taxation change government has taken, such taxation is in the best interest of Zambians and therefore they should rally behind Mr. Chikwanda.
He further adds that he has a sense that the Finance Minister is currently under great pressure with respect to the source of financing the 2015 national budget in relation to the overall budgetary commitments by the government given the infrastructure programme.
Dr. Kalumba says he is quite certain that Mr. Chikwanda will have to resort to many other unorthodox methods raising revenue that may include borrowing in order to meet the budgetary commitments.